Sahaquiel

Death of an Angel

An angel steps on an ant Ant no more Angel no more

Sahaquiel was born into angelhood. His parents were angels, his uncles and aunts were angels, his grandparents were angels, as were their parents. His siblings were angels. In other words: ran in the family: angelhood was his lot in life. Other, as a rule initially wingless, angels had to work for their angelhood, which took lots of practice, apprenticeships, tons of exams and tests and such before they finally were accepted and sworn in as angels.

It is assumed, and rightly so, that angels that have had to work for their status make for better angels than those who fall into undeserved angelhood by birth. Sahaquiel was very much that second case in such a point.

Also, he was not — not from birth — a good angel. He was, by any standard, an unruly angel, and he liked to step on ants.

His reasoning went like this: ants are so small that there can’t be a lot of life in them, so snuffing it out was no big deal. Yes, burning an anthill, killing thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, yes, that would be bad, lots of lives adding up to BIG LIFE, but a single ant, who really cares?

Turns out Gabriel — archangel and all who kept an eye on angel things — cared. One morning he spotted young Sahaquiel stepping on not just one but three ants. Gabriel called the miscreant over, slapped him around a bit and read him a sermon on Life and an angel’s live-and-let-live place in it.

Never again, promised Sahaquiel.

Gabriel told his father, who slapped Sahaquiel around some more and extracted another “never again” for his efforts.

Sahaquiel’s biggest regret was having been caught. Going forward, then, he stepped on ants well out of sight of prying archangel eyes, or any angel eyes for that matter.

But then there’s God, of course.

Normally busy keeping the Universe running smoothly (or, sometimes, some weaker version of that adverb) with the help of his not insubstantial army of angels, every now and then God takes a breather. And when he does, he likes to roam (float, really) the heavenly forests, and floating among the heavenly forest trees God prefers to be invisible. No supplicating animals or trees or people or angels for that matter to heed. Invisible, no one bothers you — that was his mantra, and invisibly he floated among the heavenly trees, taking in the green and the brown and the blue of sky and white of cloud above and the rustle and hustle and bustle of lives both large and small.

Relaxed and in an ever-improving mood God noticed Sahaquiel sneaking about among the selfsame trees, not looking up but looking down, for ants (God could tell, for God is omniscient, remember). And now Sahaquiel stops and looks around to see if anyone else is about that might be noticing him, and satisfied that he is perfectly alone, he now lifts one angel foot and bears it down on one in-an-instant ex-ant, with a gotcha grin on the angel face.

Similar grin on God’s face as he re-materializes not ten feet from the ant killer. God points at the ant corpse (now just a smudge of scarlet and black on the forest path) and wonders not aloud but still loud enough for Sahaquiel to hear Him very well.

“You killed him.”

From that day on, the human expression “Caught with your hand in the cookie jar” when translated to Angelese became “caught with your foot on the ant.”

Since Sahaquiel was indeed the original caught with his foot on the ant there was nothing he could say, no way out of this. Besides, this was God Himself for heaven’s sake.

“And you promised,” said omniscient God.

The ant killer colored and nodded.

Omniscient God then snapped his fingers and Sahaquiel’s wings fell off.

“You can’t do that,” said the ant killer.

“Can and just did,” said the Almighty.

“But I’m an angel.”

“Was an angel,” clarified God.

“But that’s all I know,” said Sahaquiel. Then added, “how to be.”

“There’s always angel boot camp, and angel school, and angel practice, and angel apprenticeships and angel tests and exams and eventual, very eventual angelhood again,” lectured God.

“What am I going to tell my dad?”

“Don’t worry about that Sahaquiel, I will let him know,” said God.

“This is not fair,” said the ant killer.

“Agreed,” said God. “Fair would be me squashing you like you just squashed the ant. Is that what you prefer, perhaps?

There’s no response to that, of course, and Sahaquiel didn’t even reach for one.

“Till next time, then,” said God.

Leaving a wingless Sahaquiel who eventually made it back to Angeltown where he enlisted in Angelhood School along with many, many other wing-less creatures, most of them well-behaved and now awarded humans (which is what he also now was, but had not realized quite yet — human, that is).

It took him years (and an angel year is ten thousand earth-years) to work his way back into God’s good graces and a reinstated angelhood (and new wings).

And Sahaquiel has not stepped on any ants since.

Nor killed anything else, for that matter.

God is still keeping an eye on him though. As is Gabriel.

© Wolfstuff

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